“O breathe not his name!”—Moore.
1.

Thou Great Unknown!

I do not mean Eternity, nor Death,

That vast incog!

For I suppose thou hast a living breath,

Howbeit we know not from whose lungs ’tis blown,

Thou man of fog!

Parent of many children — child of none!

Nobody’s son!

Nobody’s daughter — but a parent still!

Still but an ostrich parent of a batch

Of orphan eggs — left to the world to hatch

Superlative Nil!

A vox and nothing more — yet not Vauxhall;

A head in papers, yet without a curl!

Not the Invisible Girl!

No hand — but a handwriting on a wall —

A popular nonentity,

Still call’d the same — without identity!

A lark, heard out of sight —

A nothing shin’d upon — invisibly bright,

“Dark with excess of light!”

Constable’s literary John-a-nokes —

The real Scottish wizard — and not which,

Nobody — in a niche;

Every one’s hoax!

Maybe Sir Walter Scott —

Perhaps not!

Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks?
2.

Thou — whom the second-sighted never saw,

The Master Fiction of fictitious history!

Chief Nong-tong-paw!

No mister in the world — and yet all mystery!

The “tricksy spirit” of a Scotch Cock Lane —

A novel Junius puzzling the world’s brain —

A man of Magic — yet no talisman!

A man of clair obscure — not he o’ the moon!

A star — at noon.

A non-descriptus in a caravan,

A private — of no corps — a northern light

In a dark lantern — Bogie in a crape —

A figure — but no shape;

A vizor — and no knight;

The real abstract hero of the age;

The staple Stranger of the stage;

A Some One made in every man’s presumption,

Frankenstein’s monster — but instinct with gumption;

Another strange state captive in the north,

Constable-guarded in an iron mask —

Still let me ask,

Hast thou no silver platter,

No door-plate, or no card — or some such matter,

To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth?
3.

Thou Scottish Barmecide, feeding the hunger

Of Curiosity with airy gammon!

Thou mystery-monger,

Dealing it out like middle cut of salmon,

That people buy and can’t make head or tail of it;

(Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it;)

Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical,

That lay their proper bodies on the shelf —

Keeping thyself so truly to thyself,

Thou Zimmerman made practical!

Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style,

That, like the Nile,

Hideth its source wherever it is bred,

But still keeps disemboguing

(Not disembroguing)

Thro’ such broad sandy mouths without a head!

Thou disembodied author — not yet dead —

The whole world’s literary Absentee!

Ah! wherefore hast thou fled,

Thou learned Nemo — wise to a degree,

Anonymous LL.D.!
4.

Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang

That do — and inquests cannot say who did it!

Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty’s death-pang?

Hast thou made gravy of Weare’s watch — or hid it?

Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber? Heaven forbid it!

I should be very loth to see thee hang!

I hope thou hast an alibi well plann’d,

An innocent, altho’ an ink-black hand.

Tho’ that hast newly turn’d thy private bolt on

The curiosity of all invaders —

I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton,

Who knows a little of the Holy Land,

Writing thy next new novel — The Crusaders!
5.

Perhaps thou wert even born

To be Unknown. — Perhaps hung, some foggy morn,

At Captain Coram’s charitable wicket,

Pinn’d to a ticket

That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing

The future great unmentionable being. —

Perhaps thou hast ridden

A scholar poor on St. Augustine’s Back,

Like Chatterton, and found a dusty pack

Of Rowley novels in an old chest hidden;

A little hoard of clever simulation,

That took the town — and Constable has bidden

Some hundred pounds for a continuation —

To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation.
6.

I like thy Waverley — first of thy breeding;

I like its modest “sixty years ago,”

As if it was not meant for ages’ reading.

I don’t like Ivanhoe,

Tho’ Dymoke does — it makes him think of clattering

In iron overalls before the king

Secure from battering, to ladies flattering,

Tuning, his challenge to the gauntlet’s ring —

Oh better far than all that anvil clang

It was to hear thee touch the famous string

Of Robin Hood’s tough bow and make it twang,

Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan,

Like Sagittarian Pan!
7.

I like Guy Mannering — but not that sham son

Of Brown:— I like that literary Sampson,

Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Porson.

I like Dirk Hatteraick, that rough sea Orson

That slew the Gauger;

And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major;

And Merrilies, young Bertram’s old defender,

That Scottish Witch of Endor,

That doom’d thy fame. She was the Witch, I take it,

To tell a great man’s fortune — or to make it!
8.

I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on,

He makes me think of Mr. Britton,

I like thy Antiquary. With Ins fit on,

It makes me think

Who has — or had — within his garden wall,

A miniature Stone Henge, so very small

That sparrows find it difficult to sit on;

And Dousterwivel, like Poyais’ M’Gregor;

And Edie Ochiltree, that old Blue Beggar,

Painted so cleverly,

I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly!

I like thy Barber — him that fir’d the Beacon —

But that’s a tender subject now to speak on!
9.

I like long-arm’d Rob Roy. — His very charms

Fashion’d him for renown! — In sad sincerity,

The man that robs ............